Import and Export Licences

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22592, 23 December 1938, Page 8

Import and Export Licences

The confusion existing in the business community because of the import and export licensing regulations is exemplified in the questions asked of Customs Department officers by a meeting of Wellington businessmen. Most disturbing was the obvious inability of the officers to answer plainly and definitely a majority pf the questions, which must be typical of hundreds of similar questions that are exercising the minds of importers particularly, and also of exporters. The constant resort of the officers to the vague answer that

“the case would be considered on its merits” is a fair indication of the uncertain state of mind of the officers responsible for administering the regulations and of the complexities that will constantly face them in meeting cases for which obviously no provision has been made or could be made. It is an unfair burden to cast upon men, who, however intelligent and well-intentioned they may be, cannot be expected to visualise and to meet the difficulties with which particular industries may be faced and to understand the problems peculiar to each. The obvious unpreparedness of the Government to meet such emergencies as were indicated by the Wellington business community makes it more difficult than ever to accept Mr Savage’s revised version—that the Government is working to a preconceived plan—of Mr Nash’s earlier intimation that the regulations are devised to meet a particular situation—the rapid dwindling of the London sterling funds. The business community is waiting, with as much patience as it can muster, for the Government to straighten out the tangle into which the import trade particularly has been thrown by the Cabinet’s hastily-devised and ill-prepared measures. So far the restraint of the business people has been admirably good-humoured, but that is a condition that cannot be expected to continue indefinitely. The Government should realise that under its present system—or lack of it—■ it is setting up a form of bureaucratic control that will impose unwarrantable hardships and difficulties on the business community and subject it to delays and hindrances that may mean serious loss. The provision for final appeal to the Minister is fantastic. It is obviously impossible for the Minister, as the final arbiter, to “ deal with each case on its merits.” The only reasonable course the Government can pursue is to call in expert advice and set up an authority capable of giving swift and definite decisions. The longer this is delayed the more confused will the position become and the more difficult finally to reduce it to order.